It's okay to ask
by Zukuto
Summary: Follow the adventure of Sarah the F!LW and her transfer from Vault Girl to Wasteland Wanderer. Can she do it? No survival training, no weapons training no... nothing. How does a girl go from painting nails to maintaining weapons. It's a massive jump and Sarah isn't sure she can survive in this cruel, sadistic world. Warning: Rated M for adult themes later in the story.


_Hi there!_

_So I've been going through a phase of reading stories about Butch and I felt that I wanted to have a go at one myself.  
>This story features around the dynamic between Butch and F!LW. I always wondered what it would be like if there was an opposites attract kind of relationship. The main point of this story will still centre around the main plot line but the eventual relationship between the two will hopefully spice it up a bit. I don't want to focus on the main line straight away so I wanted to explore what life in the Vault was like before James buggered off and screwed everything up.<em>

_Please enjoy, I apologise if I've missed any grammar/spelling mistakes and if it's not your kinda story that's cool too. Each to their own. I'm enjoying writing it so I hope you like reading it._

The Vault had never been the most exciting of places but since passing the G.O.A.T it had gotten a hell of a lot worse. Sarah was fed up. It was as simple as that. She hadn't thought there was any real consequence to filling out that stupid test randomly, she hadn't thought her dad had been serious when he told her to actually pay attention. All they ever learnt was how to be good Vaultians! Really, what kind of question was:

_'You discover a young boy lost in the lower levels of the Vault. He's hungry and frightened, but also appears to be in possession of stolen property. What do you do?"_ **__**

Really?! What would she do? Well, first off why was she wandering the lower levels? How did the boy get there? Why was it **her** finding the boy and where the heck was Vault Security? Pissin' around the main foyer most likely! Apparently Mr Brotch hadn't been impressed with her answer:

_'Pick the boy's pocket to take the stolen property for yourself, and leave the boy to his fate'._

Her answers were all along a similar random line and that was how she had ended up here. The Vault's Pedicurist. It was the job from hell. No question about it. Day in, day out, she had to listen to all the stupid goings on and gossip from the Vault residents who graced her door. Sarah sighed heavily as she laid out her equipment for the day. She could still hear Mr Brotch's laughter ringing in her ears from all those years ago.

_"__It's nice to know I can still be surprised. Pedicurist! I might have guessed Manicurist or even Masseuse. But apparently you're a foot person."_

Fantastic. Just fan-fucking-tastic. So, ever since that day she'd been stuck here in the old beauty clinic that hadn't been used in God knows how long spending her days smiling and fulfilling her Vault duties.

Bull.

Now Sarah's days consisted of applying nail polish, promoting good nail care and decorating ugly nails and trying to make even the most stubby and knobbly seem lovely. It was a tough job but her own stupidity got her here. Not that she was just a Pedicurist! Oh no, as there was no other kind of beauty technician here she'd set about learning it all. How to massage, how to do a good manicure, how to apply facials. Blah, blah, blah. Not like there had been anything better to do so why not learn and make the most of her time. Each morning Sarah got up, scraped her long hazel hair up into a presentable pony tail, applied a tiny bit of make up to her pale skin and threw on her beauty uniform over her Vault suit. The silver lining to this job? She wasn't up at stupid o'clock like some of the other residents who worked in the likes of engineering or the food service. They were up making sure the generators were functioning, the air filtration wasn't on the fritz and making the food for all the other residents. Not there were that many residents left these days. Sarah couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for those jobs back when the vault was filled to the brim. When the whole Vault was used and not just parts of it. Now, there was just a scattering of Vault residents and a very small gene pool.

Once all of her equipment was out and set up Sarah set about reading one of the old Pre-War beauty guides whilst waiting for her first customer of the day. It didn't take long. Around an hour after opening her shop door flew open and Amata and Susie Mack walked through, smiles plastered on their faces as they laughed at some private joke between the two of them.

"Hey Sarah!" Amata called out cheerfully, reaching out to give her friend a hug.

Sarah liked Amata, she really did, but she could be a little overbearing. Especially after getting placed on the Supervisory track. Everyone knew she was lined up to be the next Overseer so you'd think she'd tone done the hard work a bit, but no, not Amata.

"Hi Amata, hey Suzie, what brings you two down my neck of the woods?"

Not that Sarah really cared but she had to at least act like her job right? Suzie was alright. A little bit soft for Sarah's liking but a nice enough girl. She was on the education path and was going to be a good teacher, Sarah knew this. She was patient, kind, a little stuck but that was okay. She was also polite and actually acknowledged Sarah's presence unlike a lot of her clients so that was something.

Susie smiled at her, her white teeth sparkling in the soft light.

"Hello Sarah, business doing well?"

Shrugging, she gesture the two girls to sit down in the beauty chairs. They weren't anything special, just part of an old booth that was destined for the incinerator. It had taken her awhile but Sarah had managed to get the chairs looking good as new and now formed part of her shop. The two girls took their seats and let Sarah get on with their treatments. She listened to the two of them gossip over trivial things; how work was, the food in the Vault lately and most importantly, boys. There wasn't much choice down in the Vault and it was every residents civic duty to keep the blood line going so finding a partner who worked well with you was important. Not to mention one you weren't too closely related to. Sarah shuddered, that thought was really disturbing. For whatever reason she had next to no other family in the Vault, no one spoke of it so she'd always assumed there'd been some kind of accident but it did make her happy in situations like this. It would be gross to have to marry her cousin or something along those lines.

"... I heard that Freddie asked you to dinner recently Susie, is it true?!"

Sarah had been drifting in and out of the conversation as she had started the ex foliation portion of Amata's treatment. At the news she dropped her pumice stone into the basin of water. This _**was**_ news! It was well known that Freddie has never shown an interest in anyone. Not her, not Amata, not Paul... for the longest time they'd thought he was broken.

Susie blushed, tucking a stray strand of her blonde hair behind her ear.

"Yeah he asked me the other night. He was very nice about the whole thing".

Sarah gaped at Susie, not caring that her mouth was hanging open. This was definitely the most interesting thing she'd heard in awhile and that was all she was getting? Bull. Shit.

"Oh no Mack! You don't get to just say that little bit and then you two move on to talking about God only knows what. I have to listen to nonsense everyday in here. I want details and I want it all!"

The afternoon went by pretty quick, it had been almost enjoyable. Her clients came and went and thankfully it was a quick day. Cleaning up as quick as she could, Sarah gathered up her belongings and exited out into the stale Vault corridors and waited for the door to close behind her so she could look up. The hall was identical to all the other halls but Sarah quite liked hers. It was a little off from the main centre of the Vault and other than her shop there was only one other facility near by. Sadly the occupant was not a favourable one. The other shop was the Vault Barbers, run by Butch DeLoria. The bane of Sarah's life. They'd come along way from hair pulling and name calling but the two of them still didn't get along. To be fair, they hadn't really spoken since the G.O.A.T when they found out their respective careers. At the start, Sarah had been naïve enough to think that maybe having similar jobs would maybe build some sort of bridge between them but so far nothing. Sarah had never even been to him for a hair cut, she stuck to her own blunt scissors. But she had seen Butch's work and she had to reluctantly admit that it was really good. That didn't even do it justice, his work was great, amazing even, not that she'd ever tell him. Locking up, Sarah turned and made her way slowly down the hall, not in any rush to get back to her quarters, and ran through her work for the day. She was still interested in the whole Freddie and Susie situation and was dying to know more about it. How had it come about? Did Susie know about his Vault Depression Syndrome? Sarah hoped so 'cause V.A.D was hard to live with. Turning a corner she spotted the door to the clinic and peaked her head round the open door to see if her dad was still there. Sitting at the terminal in the corner was not her father but Jonas. Sarah smiled slyly to herself, Jonas hadn't noticed her yet and this had hilarity written all over it. Slowly, Sarah made her way into the clinic, trying very hard to control the squeak of her shoes on the floor. She kept her breathing even and her movements slow and precise, no wasted step. It didn't take long for her to end up almost directly behind Jonas, she was so close she could see the fine details of his face; his laughter lines, the slight greying to his hair and she could see the computer screen as he typed away. Reading over his shoulder she caught snippets of text;

'_Experiment went well for batch A-32 but A-33 failed quickly. Doc says we need access to a bigger facility like he had before here. A-33 had been promising at the start but sometimes that old saying 'too good to be true' holds some truth to it. It would be great if we could recreate 'Project Purity' here in the Vault on a small, successful scale.'_

Project Purity? What was that. Sarah scrunched up her face in slight confusion. She'd never heard of any sort of project and her Dad told her about everything that was going on. Getting lost in reading the text on the screen Sarah had completely forgot about jumping out and scaring Jonas and it wasn't long before he noticed her looming behind him. As he turned and locked eye contact with her it was as if Jonas had seen a ghost. His eyes grew wide and he practically flew backwards out of his chair in an effort to shut the computer monitor off.

"Sarah! Jesus, you startled me! What the hell were you doing standing behind me like that?"

Had she not been feeling slighted at being left out of one of her dad's experiments she would have laughed at Jonas' state. He seemed shaken and edgy and normally that would have been funny but right now her brain was elsewhere.

"What's Project Purity?" she asked, fixing Jonas with her gaze, her hazel eyes piercing his own.

"It's just an experiment of the Doc's. You know what he's like Sarah, he's always stretching the boundaries".

Sarah frowned as Jonas danced around her question.

"He talks to me about all his experiments. **You** **know** what dad's like, he's always stretching the boundaries and proud to do so." She said throwing his words back at him.

She wasn't sure why this bothered her so much. It was just an experiment but she couldn't help but feel it was important. Why wouldn't either of them have spoken to her about it? God knows their work was more interesting that hers'. As Jonas stumbled over his words and excuses Sarah decided she'd had enough. Turning on her heels she stormed out amidst Jonas' background protests. She was so angry she wasn't paying attention to where she was going, all that mattered was getting away from the clinic. It really had nothing to do with her and yet here she was throwing a tantrum like a five year old who'd had their favourite Grognak comic taken from them. Down the corridors she twisted and turned, lost in her thoughts until she walked straight into something solid with such speed that she was knocked off her feet.

"Ouch! What the-"

Glancing up to see what she had walked into Sarah was greeted with the beady eyes of one, very familiar, green snake. The snake was twisting up the back of a leather jacket, the forked tongue giving it a sinister looking effect from down on the floor. There were few people this snake could be on the back off, fewer still who would be down at this level of the Vault. With slow deliberate moves the owner of the jacket turned to face Sarah sitting on the floor. The strong jawline, salo skin and dark hair that was styled just so. That pompous 'greaser' style worn by all Tunnel Snakes irked her as soon as she saw it, that random curl of hair at the front that she just wanted to pull on. The iron pressed frown that she was so use to seeing being thrown her way.

Standing above her was Butch DeLoria.


End file.
